Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid vowed today that the Senate Finance Committee would wrap up its work on the health care reform bill before the end of next week.

The Finance Committee has yet to finish its work on the bill, which will have to be merged with a bill that has already been passed in the Senate HELP Committee. The Finance Committee remains hung up on how to pay for the package, but the panel negotiators have been moving toward dropping the public option for insurance.

Reid today was vague on whether he supported the public option, the most controversial and expensive aspect of President Barack Obama’s health care push. Opponents of the public option have suggested that a compromise take place that would remove the public plan from the package.

“What I think should be in the bill is something that I will vote for according to my conscience when we get this bill to the floor,” Reid told reporters today. “But I have a responsibility to get a bill to the Senate floor that will get 60 votes that we can proceed toward.”

“That’s my No. 1 responsibility,” Reid continued, “and there are times I have to set aside my personal preferences for the good of the Senate and I think the country.”

Republicans, meanwhile, continued to blast away at the Democratic push.

“So far, the only plans we've seen enjoy bipartisan opposition. In other words, there's not a plan that I've seen that people can support on a bipartisan basis,” McConnell told reporters. “What is the conclusion we should reach when looking at the bills that have been produced that are bipartisan only in their opposition?”